The Serpent and the Spider
by PeiPei
Summary: Ritchie Brown is trying to help Norrington, but things get out of his hands. The Black Pearl is no place for him, her captain is not to be handled so easily, and what, if not mutual hatred, is growing between them? The fic is FINISHED, the story is NOT.
1. I hate losers

Disclaimer: "Pirates of the Caribbean" belong to Disney. "Cold and Raw" song is taken from John Playford's "Dancing Master", the Tyburn tree version of "Greensleeves" from "The Beggar's Opera" by John Gay and John Christopher Pepusch, and the serpent and spider allegory from the novel "Guzman de Alfarache" by Mateo Aleman.  
  
Rating: R (for further chapters)  
  
Beta: Ewa - you're my treasure, luv. And K. - I'm sorry for being such a pain in the ass.  
  
A/N: 1) This story stands on its own, but it has a prequel, "A Look On Helen's Face". 2) "The Beggar's Opera" was produced as late as 1728, so it's an anachronism to put it in, but I just couldn't resist. 3) Wapping is a place in London where pirates were executed.  
  
I'd like to thank all my reviewers for their kindness and support. Special hugs for Melanie and Bren Eldrid Bera.  
  
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The Serpent and the Spider  
  
I  
  
I hate losers.  
  
I'm watching the cockfight, with my arm around pretty Fanny's neck. Her fair head rests on my shoulder, she smells of orange peel (was rubbing it behind her ears, I saw it last night), of woman's sweat and of roasted fowl that we ate together. She probably smells of wine, too, but I can't feel it, for I'm drunk as well.   
  
The subtle scent has just woken me up - the unmistakable scent of blood. One of the gamecocks is injured, spreading its wings helplessly, the right a bit lower to the ground. It's suddenly forgetting the fight, turning around in the circle decorated with blood and feathers, crooking its head with little painful moves. Its owner is encouraging it, shouting madly, reaching to touch it - the spectators have to restrain him. His rival, the owner of the winner cock, is laughing from the bottom of his heart, and his friends share his happiness, praising his brave bird and its razor-sharp gaff, still ready to fight.   
  
The dying gamecock barely stands in the cockpit, falling heavily on the wounded wing's side, unmoving, waiting for merciful death. But death is slow and mercy is absent. The bird's owner is trembling with his ugly despair at his loss, and I can see his face getting distorted with fury. The fight is over, but not the fighter's potential to suffer. The owner takes the gamecock into his hands and sobbing, trembling, with tears running down his red cheeks, starts tearing out the feathers. He's doing it methodically, trying to calm down, nipping the pallid skin of the bird he was once loving more than his own child. Then he grabs the injured right wing and brokes it further, then the left one; then he takes the head in his almost tender fingers and squeezes these two shallow, yellow eyes out. And then there is not much he still can do, so he breaks the cock's neck, throws the carcass to the ground and leaves into the night.  
  
It's why I hate losers - there's no mercy, no pity, no forgiveness in them, just a cold cruelty let loose. Not that I've always been a winner, but I haven't been dwelling on my losses anyway... until now.  
  
I am looking for a man who killed my mentor and friend, Captain Barbossa. I'm looking for a man who's name is Jack Sparrow - not Captain Jack Sparrow, I can't bring myself to call him that. He's no Captain to me. And I don't know what I should do to him when I find him, because I'm in debt of another man, Commodore James Norrington, who saved my life, and who wants Sparrow safe and sound.  
  
The Commodore doesn't know that I promised myself to bring Sparrow to him. He probably thinks I'm just an ungrateful piece of scum. He bought me a meal when I was ill and hungry, and he didn't arrest me even though he knew I'm branded. And me, in turn - I tried to seduce him, accused him of fancing Sparrow, and then stole his pistol. I told him my name, now he knows I was once among Captain Barbossa's crew. Should I show myself in Port Royal, he'll have me hanged, and I can't blame him for that.   
  
Yet I can't abandon my promise. I want to help the Commodore, who fancies Sparrow, but is still a man of duty. Which one will prevail - duty or fancy? It's always so interesting to see these two battle; and I have not much admiration for men who put their duty above all else. Should the sense of duty win in Norrington's heart, I'll be free from that ridiculous little pain that I'm feeling when I'm thinking about him. And moreover, should his sense of duty win, I'll see Sparrow hang - alongside me, maybe, but it's worth trying; I'll be a loser and a winner at the same time.  
  
Commodore's pistol is bringing me luck, nobody refuses me a little help when I'm holding them at the gunpoint. It got me medicine, good clothes, a cutlass, then money. My hair is shorter and shiny now, I'm wearing a fine Holland shirt under a neat velvet jacket, I have new soft boots with silver bucklets, I have a hat, I've even found a love here - petite Fanny, sweet and clear, with delicate white breasts and red lips she doesn't even need to paint.  
  
She is new to the trade, she told me that she was a servant in a wealthy London family. They came to Leeward Islands two years ago, after a year she found herself having an affair with her master, got pregnant, then expelled. An ordinary little story, dozens of them are piled on every town's backyards. Luckily, the baby was stillborn. Luckily, Fanny is not a kind of girl that takes things too seriously - she's catching what each day offers her, with no concern for tomorrow or fear for the end.  
  
The crew of El Segador - a small sloop I've managed to board in order to get here - was drinking with girls, and Fanny was the prettiest of them. Everybody wanted her, but we tried to be polite; it was our first night on La Onza de Gracia, and we wanted it to be a good one, so El Segador's captain, tall and skinny Pau Segre, asked Fanny to choose. She smiled and said:  
  
"Let's make it a game, Captain. I'll sing and the first to know the song and sing it with me will be a winner."  
  
"Fairly good," said Pau, who is a Catalan, "but you're English and not ev'rybody of my crew is, so would you be sweet to us an' try not only English songs?"  
  
"I can sing Spanish and French ones too," she said and took the mandoline, and she already won my heart, because for me music is truly a spice of love.  
  
But it's been long time since I was earning my daily bread in the Spanish Main; I'd just come back after ten years of wandering elsewhere and didn't know the songs that Fanny was singing. The first one was French, but none of us recognized it, as it sounded too polished; the second one was Spanish, but it was in a dialect so strange that we started scratching our heads, and Fanny told us it was from La Plata - no wonder we haven't heard it; the third one was English, she took first accords and my heart started to beat wildly, for the melody was familiar for me.  
  
"It's 'Greensleeves', right?" I exclaimed, and Pau and all the crew looked at me with murder in their eyes.  
  
She started to laugh.  
  
"No," she said. "Listen."  
  
It WAS "Greensleeves", but the words were so odd I just opened my eyes wide.  
  
"Since laws were made for ev'ry degree,  
  
To curb vice in others, as well as me,  
  
I wonder we han't better company  
  
Upon Tyburn tree!  
  
But gold from law can take out the sting,  
  
And if rich men, like us, were to swing,  
  
'Twould thin the land..."  
  
"Now what did ye do to poor old 'Greensleeves', miss?", asked Sid Moore, Pau's quartermaster, who was born in York. "I've ne'er heard of Lady Greensleves standin' under Tyburn tree!"  
  
"What's that Tyburn tree?" asked Pau.  
  
"It's the gallows, Captain," I said. "The gallows in the Tyburn prison."  
  
"You've never heard of 'The Beggar's Opera', it seems," said Fanny, looking a bit offended. "It's very fashionable and all the elegant society in London loves it. They don't like Italian opera anymore, just songs about cutthroats and beggars and unfortunates, and they're all delighted to hear how prisons and galleys look like."  
  
"That's excellent," I said, "if they love to hear about gallows, they're going to love us gallows' birds even more, for if not us, who'd bring them joy and delight of these songs?"  
  
"It's because the government in London is so vile," said Fanny, "that people believe the unfortunates are more honourable and true to their codes of behaviour than the Upper Ten."  
  
"If it's so," said Sid, "then decent folks in London should like us pirates, for we have our code too."  
  
"Who knows," I said, "let some years pass and then we'll discover there are tales about pirates to amuse children, not to frighten them, and to make them believe we're good men, honourable not only to ourselves, but to others as well."  
  
"Sure," said Pau, "but I'd bet on Saint Virgin's lovely little fingers, Ritchie, that you'll swing from that Tyburn tree before anyway."  
  
"It's not Tyburn for me, it's Wapping, Captain. But at least not before pretty Fanny sings another song."  
  
"All right," she said with a sly look at me, "I'll sing some more."  
  
And she started with "Cold and raw the North did blow...", and I bit my lip, for I knew the song and all I needed was to recall the words; Sid exclaimed: "Damn!", and took a deep breath, and poor Pau spilled his drink, but couldn't do anything, and I thought of love... there was price for love in the song... then raised my hand and sang with Fanny:  
  
"Twenty more shall buy delight,  
  
Thy person I love so dearly,  
  
If thou wouldst stay with me all night,  
  
And go home in the morning early.  
  
If twenty pounds can buy the globe,  
  
Quoth she..."  
  
Then Fanny laughed and said:  
  
"It's 'this I'd not do, sir', but I'd do it. You won."  
  
"It's you who won me, my queen," I said taking her hand with little rosy fingers reddened from playing.  
  
Three days passed from that night and we are hardly moving from Fanny's bed, going downstairs only to eat and to listen to quarrels. The Grey Inn is the biggest tavern in the island, and despite the name not grim at all; there are cockfights and manfights, dances and music, the bargains are being made and dues are being paid. And since Tortuga is no longer a safe place for the likes of me, La Onza de Gracia is flourishing; every pirate vessel of the Caribbean can land here untroubled, and I hope that Jack Sparrow will appear here some day, if only to prove the island's name right.  
  
Now I'm living a pretty dull life; the blood scent, however, has woken me up. There's not only love in this world, there's my Lady Death too, and she's just let me know she's here. Time to bow to her. New ships are arriving every day to La Novia, the island's harbor. What if my foe is here already, and I'm not prepared, with my awareness lost between Fanny's milky legs?  
  
I'm looking over at the slowly emptying place where the cockfight was being held. The winner has just collected his share and is coming here to sit and drink, boosted with pride and self-importance. Ah, you poor mongrel, but it's not you who won, it's the bird that's now dying from loss of blood and from thirst. Are you coming up here? There's no place for you, at least not here, and I don't care if the chair by Fanny's side is the only one you can sit in. But I see you're aiming for it - well, does it mean you're sent here by your own Lady Death, so that I have something to practice with?  
  
He's coming to us with his cronies, all warmed up by their victory, sure that nobody would cross them in this happy hour, and I can see Fanny's eyes sparkling with sudden interest. Well, I don't like winners either, in fact. And when he takes the chair unceremonially, ready to land his big butt, I kick the chair swiftly to the side and lay my legs on it.  
  
"Wait, friend," I say, "you forgot to ask if it's free for you to take."  
  
He looks down on me.  
  
"And who are you that I've to ask you for a chair?"  
  
"I'm the one of us two who knows what politeness means, mate. You don't sit in my lady's company, unless she allows you. Or unless I do."  
  
He folds his hands and unfolds them, for he sees from my light tone that I'm deliberately picking a fight. His mateys look at him and at each other; they don't understand why he's not smacked me down already. But he's not that dumb, he knows that I'd like to kill, and that I've chosen him.  
  
"Oh, your lady," he says with a bow. "Yeah, should have to ask her. If she's as clever as she's pretty, she should know that to be lucky is to be on the winner's side tonight. How's that? Let's say, this is up to the princess to decide who's worth to sit along with her."  
  
Fanny is uncertain what she should do. The winner is a tall, solid-built fellow with a pleasant broad face. He's breeding the gamecocks, therefore he's living here and can be counted on. I'm picking quarrels, and will leave La Onza de Gracia sooner or later. She begins to look at the winner longingly, and her hand on my arm becomes lighter.  
  
"Is that what you want, love?" I ask her softly. "You prefer a man with two cocks? Well, I understand you, but see - the one he's carrying with him is not the one that won the fight; and that one that won is already vanishing, so that he'll be a one-cock man in the morning anyway."  
  
He starts to lose his patience, as his cronies do as well.  
  
"He's looking for trouble, Philip," one of them says. "And he's alone, what the hell?"  
  
"You'd better watch your tongue, mate," he says, "I just wanted to sit here, that's all."  
  
"Well, I'm sorry, mate," I say, "there's no place for you, let alone your whole court. It's only one chair, you see."  
  
"I can see that, but is there anyone you're holding that chair for?" He's trying to be civil.  
  
"Aye, to be honest..." I hesitate, deciding to play with him a little more. And then I see a tall black woman, who's coming up here with a bunch of new customers, and is looking for a place to sit. I haven't seen her before, she isn't one of Gray Inn's girls, and she is dressed very plainly, in a white shirt, and... are there trousers? If she's wearing trousers, then she's no tavern wench. She must have come here on some pirate ship - it means that new ships have just arrived to La Novia.  
  
"To be honest, I've been holding the place for that lady over here," I say. "Move away, cock-breeders, don't let her stand. Hey, lady, there's a nice place just for you."  
  
She frowns at me, and the winner Philip's face reddens.  
  
"You're sparing that chair for a Negro woman? A black will sit when a white's standing, you bastard?"  
  
"All's natural," I say. "She's black, you're stupid, God's almighty. You call me a bastard?"  
  
"I do, and I'll prove you are one," he says taking a knife he had at his belt.  
  
"Drop it, matey," I say, "or you'll find yourself without either cock even before the morning comes." And I aim my pistol - Commodore's pistol - between his legs. I don't want to kill him now. I want to know who came to La Novia tonight.  
  
"Now, now, if ye excuse me," says somebody making his way through Philip's cronies, "there's no need for a fight, trust me. Me crew's well accustomed to takin' care of themselves. Just apologize, friend, an' be free an' well."  
  
The group that the black woman entered here with, is now rounding up Philip's little circle of supporters. They are armed and though they remain calm, it's clear that the cockfighters are no match for them. And the black woman is holding a pistol against Philip's back - he's now between two pistols aiming at him. Oh, nice.  
  
The captain is waiting patiently, raising his dark brows, and finally Philip says:  
  
"Sorry. Didn't mean to offend, really." He casts me a glance full of heartful death wish, I tuck my pistol back, the black woman takes hers away, too. There's not much to say. Philip's party leaves, and I find myself sitting alone at the table. Not only my Fanny is gone - and I don't know what angered her more, my sudden defence of the black pirate, or Philip's sudden defeat - but all other customers who were sitting around cleared up as well. Yes, firearms are that scary, especially in a crowded tavern.  
  
"You're lucky, mateys," I say to my new company. "It was hard to breathe here just a moment before, and now - you see. I owe you a drink."  
  
"No, it's me who owes you," says the black woman sitting down with a wide smile. "It looked as if you were only happy to shoot the fella, though."  
  
"Didn't like him from the beginning," I grin back. "Tried to talk my girl away."  
  
"Bad news fer ye, then. It seems she's run with 'im."  
  
"Be it for good. I'm not going to stay here anyway. I was looking for a good ship to board."  
  
"Are ye goin' anywhere?"  
  
"Depends on the pay - can be elsewhere. I'm not very demanding and don't have special requests, and I've been going on account for pretty long."  
  
"Lookin' for a ship to stay, then."  
  
The gray-bearded guy and the captain were listening, and now there is silence. The black woman looks at them. The captain pushes a drink to me.  
  
"I can say yer no coward," he says, "an' I already like the way yer treatin' people of value. I'd like to thank ye for defendin' Anamaria. They took her at surprise, an' that's a rare thing, I must say."  
  
"'Twas my pleasure."  
  
"How long are ye here?"  
  
"Just a few days."  
  
"You came with somebody."  
  
"Aye, with Pau Segre."  
  
"Aah, the 'I-prefer-to-rob-Spaniards' Catalan? Lil' El Segador's captain?"  
  
"Aye, that's the man," I say with a laugh.  
  
"Good man, good pirate. Nice to hear he's alright. Well," he says, "ne'er too many gifted men aboard. We're headin' for Cancun, if ye want to go with us. What's yer name?"  
  
"My name's Ritchie Brown."  
  
"I am Captain Jack Sparrow, an' my ship is the Black Pearl."  
  
tbc 


	2. I hate the Black Pearl

Disclaimers and rating: as in previous chapter.  
  
A/N: 1) Cigateo is an old name for Eleutera Island. 2) Canakkale is a town in Turkey on the southern side of the Straits of the Dardanelles. 3) There are some allusions to yet another story of mine, "Maid Or Not, It Suits You", so if you'd like to know more, you're most welcome to read it.  
  
I'd like to thank all my wonderful reviewers. Special thanks for lovely Raphe1.   
  
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II  
  
I hate the Black Pearl.  
  
She's a good ship, a beautiful ship, yet I hate her. I can't stand being aboard. First days weren't that bad, though. We sailed from La Novia harbor, around the island, to the safe bay of El Novio (La Onza de Gracia has two towns, La Novia or The Bride in the south, and the sleepy little El Novio or The Groom in the north, two of them connected with a thread of a road); then we heeled the Black Pearl over and started the careening, cleaning the hull of barnacles and sea weed, covering it with pitch. We repaired ropes and sails, replaced rotten planks of the hull - all that took several days and wasn't bad. We're working, eating, singing and strolling around El Novio's steep streets. The town was tranquil and not very interesting, with pigs and dogs sleeping around the biggest puddle I've ever seen, right under the San Ignacio's church in the main square. There aren't as many inns and taverns here as in La Novia, where we freemen spend our money - El Novio bay is mainly a safe place for careening, and the town is living from selling fresh supplies for ships leaving La Onza de Gracia.  
  
So there came the day to board the Black Pearl and sail away. I was happy at first, for Pau Segre's sloop was too small for me, and the Black Pearl is magnificent. It's been a long time since I've sailed on the galleon. Before walking the trap I looked upon the figurehead, a lady with a shell; she was freshly painted, but her eyes were still misty.  
  
I stopped onboard and looked at the powerful middlemast, with its newly patched sails full of wind and pride. Anamaria stood behind me and patted me on the shoulder.  
  
"Beautiful, ain't she?" somebody asked.  
  
I turned around and saw Jack Sparrow. He wasn't looking at the sails, but at the captain's cabin, with carved sea deities guarding the entrance.  
  
"Aye, she is," I said watching my boots.  
  
"Yer first time on a galleon?"  
  
"No," I said.  
  
"What was your first?" asked Anamaria.  
  
"A barquentine," I said.  
  
My first ship was a barquentine called La Aranha, and it was under Captain Barbossa's orders. We're sailing under various colours, mostly Dutch and Portuguese ones. Then after a year we acquired a galleon - Captain's first. The Black Pearl was his second and last. I didn't have an opportunity to follow him there; he spent ten years on this ship and died for her and for her crew. He was standing on this bridge deck, he was using this cabin that now Jack Sparrow is using.  
  
I can't stand all that, I don't know what to do. I'm going to forget my promise to the Commodore - the promise that is unvoiced and therefore more binding for me. I'm working under the orders of the man I won't ever call Captain. I have him here, laughing and singing and drinking with us, I'm going with him to Cancun... No, I'm not. I still have time, for it's a long way from La Onza de Gracia, past Mayaguana, Caicos, then Tortuga. I must figure him out as soon as possible and then lure him to Port Royal. And then let Norrington hang him. Let his sense of duty prevail.  
  
I've never imagined that a man who killed my Captain can look so frail and unalarming. He's about my height, and that doesn't mean much. He's very slender, with long fingers, protruding cheekbones, with delicate nostrils, and with big, dark, kohl-lined eyes. It's these eyes that you notice first when talking to him - eyes that try to say more than mouth, try to ensnare, try to seduce, try to talk you into some dangerous agreement. He's slurring and skipping words, his quick hands touch you, beads and trinkets and amulets in his hair are dancing, and his sleek body is talking too - he's like a giant snake, all pliant and glittering, charming and exotic, yet having nothing to offer you except a deadly grip and a venom.  
  
He's thinking about the ship he calls his all the time. For him, she's not means or a tool, she's an aim in herself, it seems she's harbouring his own soul somewhere inside her. He's talking to her without his usual slurring, he's walking around her, feeling the handrails and ropes, even in the night - I know it, for I'm usually on first or middle watch. He seems to be lost in his thoughts, but always has some time to stop and to talk with those who are on duty.  
  
Yes, he's kind to his men, too kind. He's talking to them like to his equals and even more. His quartermaster, Gibbs, seems to be his closest friend, speaking with an air of some father-figure, patting Sparrow on his back. The beautiful and daring Anamaria is shouting at him and putting her nose high, and there's always plenty of disagreeing and petty arguments over things he decides. Sparrow doesn't care about it, as if the title of "Captain" that the crew is putting into every sentence were all he wants. How on earth can this man rule over a ship? They don't fear him, they don't respect him, and they don't understand that their familiar, careless fondness for him can be their death some day.  
  
As my time on the Black Pearl goes by, I start to realize that Sparrow is, in fact, the only one here who has any idea what piracy on the high seas is about. He is a skilled sailor. He knows his charts, he's good at navigation, he knows not only the Spanish Main - and therefore his men can't do without him. I've heard the story of his escape from the noose - escape that was only in one-fourth his merit, for rest of the credits go to the Governor's son-in-law's sense of friendship, the Commodore's generosity, and the Black Pearl's sudden appearance. I've wondered why they came to his rescue, now I have my answer. They needed him. The most experienced of them, old Gibbs, doesn't know much about navigation, he's been just a common gob for most of his career. The same can be said about the courageous Anamaria - she cannot read charts to save her life. The rest of the crew didn't sail on anything bigger than sloops, scurrying around Tortuga and Hispaniola, and between smaller islands - but I doubt they went further than Cigateo to the north and Montserrat to the west. They were smuggling rum and tobacco, stealing ill-guarded cargo under cover of the night, running after a flotsam, and occassionally preying on unsuspecting brigantines. And now they have a galleon - no wonder they're scared.  
  
They are good folks, most of them don't have criminal records. As far as I know, there's a mute old man, older even than Gibbs - his name is Cotton and he's "P" branded on his right forearm, like Sparrow. Then there is a Chinese named Little Chen, and he's branded on his arm over the elbow; then me, that makes four, and the crew numbers twenty three. Nineteen men without names aboard the great Black Pearl that sailed once under Captain Barbossa's commands! I remember the former crew of La Aranha - they were men you didn't want to look at. They knew what this life means - a fast hunt in which you are both hunter and prey; once you stepped under the black flag, there's no way out. You chase gold and pleasure and freedom and above all, the blessed oblivion, but there are much more chasers after you - illnesses, seastorms, accidents, quarrels that end in swift death, punishments that end in a slow one, people's hatred, your own carelessness, everything that your Lady Death sends to you. You have to run really fast.  
  
And those good folks? Some of them have families, some have children; some of them dream about one big spoil that allows them to live happily till the peaceful end. They're fairly disappointed that the Royal Navy took care of the Isla de Muerte treasure, and hope to retrieve it one day. I don't know what Sparrow's plans are about Cancun, on the other hand; maybe he has a hidden map or something. I've heard of forgotten palaces and temples of the Maya... maybe Sparrow knows more. He apparently doesn't want to rob, pillage and plunder, he wants to lay his hands on a treasure that wouldn't be stained by blood - or to put it more precisely, not by blood shed by him. So there's nothing left to the crew than to seek for leftovers, it seems. And they don't want to go too far into the sea.  
  
"No, I haven't no family," said Gibbs to me during the meal, looking at the sad everyday portion of hard-tack and salted pork. "Just an old sister o'mine. She's got no family either, an' is serving in Port Royal."  
  
"What do you mean by 'serving'? What is she doing?"  
  
"She's a servant, so she's serving some lady that's come here from England." He sighed. "Haven't seen poor old Sophie for like four months. Hope she's doin' well."  
  
I sighed too almost against my will - but also for different reasons than Gibbs.  
  
"Do you visit her sometimes, then?"  
  
"Aye, I'm tryin' hard, mate. But 'tis not such an easy thing. I'm a deserter, you see, an' a pirate. Not a very safe business showin' myself in Port Royal. But the Captain promised me I can go while we're stayin' in Tortuga," he said with a happy smile.  
  
I couldn't believe my own ears and was just sitting there gaping at him. Does Sparrow comply with every request of his crew? "Oh, Captain, I know we're goin' to Cancun, but I'd love to visit my poor old sister, can I?" Is this a pirate ship, or a board school?  
  
"Don't want to leave the Spanish Main, t' tell you the truth," he continued. "'Tis good we're goin' to Cancun, that'll be not very far, an' maybe I can bring somethin' nice for Sophie. She ne'er liked me goin' with Jack Sparrow, God bless her soul. Even now, she's afraid for me, for she's heard that there are some of Barbossa's crew who might've escaped an' all that... Should calm her down an' show that I can help in her livin'." Finally he noticed my silence and added with sympathy, "what 'bout your own folks, Ritchie? Have any family here?"  
  
I hardly suppressed a laugh and said, trying to look sad:  
  
"Uhm, no... I regret it sometimes, though."  
  
"Life's always hard, 'specially at sea," he nodded making a wise face, "but if you have a kind soul waiting for you, 'tis a lil' bit lighter, believe me. There are people like Jack, who doesn't like to be bound, but ev'rybody is goin' to need a family some day. Well, Jack seems not to like his family very much, with his mother bein' drunk all the time an' all that, but I'd bet he's thinkin' of her an' his folks. Blood bonds aren't to be shaken that easily, an' there's no mother in this world who doesn't love her child..."  
  
"I'll take some more water," I said and went away, because I couldn't stand all that rubbish anymore, but I congratulated myself - at least my suffering wasn't in vain. Gibbs has a sister in Port Royal; it can come in handy later. Maybe it will help me to lure Sparrow there somehow. Anyway, I'm not going to Cancun with him. We're planning to stop at Tortuga to restock our supplies of water and food. I must talk him into going to Port Royal. He should be moved by the Commodore's feelings and pangs of conscience. After all, he's not only a good pirate, he's a good man too, right?   
  
I've almost chuckled when I've heard Sparrow call Pau Segre a good pirate. He's a good material for a pirate, yes, but he still has to become a good one. He's afraid to kill, he trusts his first mate too much, he allows his crew to drink below the deck and doesn't know that his gunner is a lazy bastard and mistreats the powder monkey who's doing his job for him. What does count for Sparrow, then? The fact that Pau is a good drinking companion, that he likes to fraternize with his crew, or that he hesitates when he has to shoot a man? Oh, that must be the last. After all, Sparrow is said to be a man who sacked Nassau Port without firing a shot.  
  
I'm laughing to myself, looking at the watch-glass. It's the earliest watch I've ever had on the Pearl - the last dog watch. I still have one full glass until midnight, and then I can go to sleep. We're already pretty tired of being at open sea so long, and there's still about two days to Tortuga. The crew is beginning to pick quarrels, and Gibbs had to forbid rolling dice. Anamaria has to sleep with her pistol under her right arm and doesn't allow us even to come too close to her. I'm thinking of Fanny's tender breasts. We're looking at each other like at a fresh meal.  
  
I don't hear Sparrow's light steps. Damn, he's always moving so quietly. There's definitely more to him than he wants to show.  
  
"Yer watch's nearly over, Ritchie," he says.  
  
"Aye, it's my earliest one as for now."  
  
"Who's next?"  
  
"Little Chen. 'Twas to be Cotton, but he's on the binnacle list, poor devil."  
  
"He'll be cured when we reach Tortuga," he smiles.  
  
"Let's hope. Tortuga's not very safe nowadays. It's better we don't have sick people to care 'bout when we're there."  
  
He looks at me with a long, thoughtful glance.  
  
"'Tis nothin'. He's only one an' the ship can manage that much. Oh, but I had somethin' to ask you. Come to me cabin, when Little Chen changes you."  
  
It's the first time I'm allowed to the captain's cabin. For a man who's practically friend with his whole crew, he's not very eager to let us in. I can understand that - the captain is the only one on board who's any privacy and it's only natural he values it. I'm wondering what he wants my advice for.  
  
I enter the cabin and suddenly feel like running away. It's only a moment and I'm overcoming it quickly, but it's as if I was struck across the head, for it's a place I've seen before.  
  
I've not only seen it, I've been almost living in it for nearly five years. I remember the Captain's cabin on La Aranha, and then on the galleon we got. I was serving as a cabin boy on both, I was cleaning the cabin, bringing the food, lighting the candles at night and blowing them off in the morning... and sometimes at night too, but it's another story. I was serving Captain's guests, both willing and unwilling ones. I know these curtains, these screens, these carved boxes alongside the walls. I recognize this mirror, these books, and is this tablecloth still an altar cape, embroidered with gold and silver and pearls?  
  
I don't know if there are the same things the Captain had on his last ship before the Pearl, or if he simply got similar ones. All I know is that the place is almost the same as I knew it. There is his taste and his liking here. It's not Sparrow's cabin; it's Captain's. And it should remain his. What am I doing here, allowing his enemy to sit in his chair and to put his legs on the table? What am I doing here on this cursed ship?  
  
"Sit down," Sparrow says.   
  
I sit. No, it's not that altar cape I knew. It's an ordinary tablecloth, if something so rich can be called an ordinary one.  
  
"Ye like my tablecloth? I've changed it. The former one was more interestin', though. A nice altar cape."  
  
He's very amused, looking straight into my eyes.  
  
"Oh... why did you change it?"  
  
"Ye think it's the sacrilegious touch? Nup. Too much pearl decoration to me likin'. The bottle doesn't stand straight on it, ye see, what a waste. Well, don't need no pearls except the greatest one, anyway."  
  
I smile to him.  
  
"Aye, I see. You've been a cleric of the Church of England once, after all."  
  
He's looking at me slightly leaning back in the chair. He's already noticed that I've never called him Captain, but he's not going to ask why; he wants to find out.   
  
And I want to get out. There's an awkward silence, I'm looking down at the ornaments of the tablecloth.  
  
"D'ye know what I'm going to ask you for?"  
  
I shake my head. He bends over the chair's arm with a sudden grace of a cat. Yes, it's cats that he's been learning those quiet steps and liquid moves from. In fact, it's a pleasure to watch him move like this.  
  
"Nothin' very important. Just this."  
  
He handles me over a lute.  
  
It's a medium-sized one, rather old and elegant. It's been carefully stored, but the wood is a bit too damp, and the rosette in the middle... I close my eyes for a moment - this lute, I remember it. The rosette is carved so delicately into some wild, flowery, almost living shape. I remember this instrument in the white, round hands of the Captain's lover; I remember it resounding along the walls of her stony, lonely house. I've always wanted to play it, but mostly wasn't allowed to, for it was Captain's love who always held it in her little greedy fingers.  
  
"What am I to do with it?"  
  
"Ye see," he says slowly, "the crew's startin' to act unpleasant, fer they're pretty bored an' needin' some amusement. Anamaria told me ye can play mandoline, so I thought that ye maybe can do somethin' with a lute too. What says you?"  
  
He's looking at me with warm, even a bit pleading eyes. It's a valuable instrument, and he's entrusting it to me...  
  
"It'll be my pleasure," I say happily.  
  
"So ye can play lute, too."  
  
"I can play almost everyting that has strings. Don't like violin that much, but lute... and mandoline... I'm not that bad with vihuela, and can play Arabian 'ud and Turkish baglama... if I were under pain of death, I can try even Chinese sanxian."  
  
"Ah, yes, vihuela, an' that Chinese one. I know 'em. 'Ud, ye say? I've heard of it. Is it like lute?"  
  
"Aye, but lower-tuned."  
  
"An' that Turkish one? How d'ye call it? Baglama?" He's quick to learn. "Ne'er heard of it."  
  
"'Tis not so much known... only in Turkey. Long neck and deep box. It's small, but has a truly powerful sound. And a very sweet at that. My favourite."  
  
He laughs. Nice, soft laugh.  
  
"Ye've been to many countries. What were ye doin' in Turkey?"  
  
"Had a girl there. An' she was playing baglama," I say, and Inci's little figure is waving at me from dark depths of time past. "I hope she's still playing it."  
  
I try the lute's sound, taking some accords of the old "Uskudara" melody. I remember us - Inci and me - sitting on the window-sill of an abandoned Turkish house, in women's quarters that still have some wooden bars at the windows, far away by the seashore, with the old Canakkale fortress behind us. We're running from people who are more powerful than us, but not as smart, so we're not so scared. We have money and horses, and the whole world is for us; Inci in boy's clothes is playing baglama, I am cleaning a pistol, and we are planning where to run next. The sea is close, but the wind among olive trees is ever so sweet, we know there is a hidden rhythm to all life, like to that baglama music... What happened to this rhythm now?...  
  
I look at Sparrow. He's observing me with a keen amusement, and I can see he's certainly pleased with himself - maybe because his crew will have their relief and joy tomorrow, or maybe because he is trying to shorten the distance between us, and he thinks he succeeded.  
  
"'Tis a good thing, to have a musician aboard. I know captains that would've tied you up when ship's at the dock, to prevent ye from runnin' away."  
  
"I'm not that much of a musician," I say laughing, "and I'm not planning a runaway. Maybe the men will have me thrown overboard, when they hear how I'm playin'."  
  
"At least remember to give me my lute back," he says with a smug smile. And I suddenly remember that it isn't his lute, after all. Maybe I'd manage to steal it back. I can see now that he doesn't want to be friendly to me; he wants to figure me out just like I am trying to figure him.  
  
"How is it?" he asks. "Will it be any good fer some playin' tomorrow?"  
  
"Well... it's in a fairly good state, but... I think the fret needs replacement."  
  
"The fret, ye say. Do you think..."  
  
He hesitates. And I suddenly see in his eyes something like a painful, guilty effort.  
  
"...do you think the former Captain was playin' it often? If so, he could... there can be a spare fret in this cabin."  
  
He turns away from me and goes to the bookshelves. What was that?... I feel like smashing the lute on the floor. Was there a pity in his voice? Was it for me or for the man he killed? Did he just say something about "this" cabin... not "his" cabin, but "this" cabin...  
  
He's searching through the bookshelves. I know the Captain could play lute, but was there any spare strings or frets in his cabin? I don't know, I'm not sure about anything aboard this damned ship anymore.  
  
"Come here, Ritchie," he says. "Ye can help me lookin' fer the bloody thing. I'm no musician, I don't even know very much how it looks like."  
  
There aren't many bookshelves in here, but still... I'm trying to move every book on the other end, as far from Sparrow as possible. Spanish, Latin, oh... "Moll Flanders"... Spanish, Spanish, Spanish... what, is this "Celestina"? And this one, it's "Guzman de Alfarache" with sprinkles of blood on it. I know this book, I know who's blood this is.  
  
"Can ye read Spanish?" he asks me. He knows Spanish too, he was impersonating a Spanish officer once.  
  
"Aye, I can."   
  
"This book's pretty amusin'."  
  
"I've read it too."  
  
"I've read ones that were tryin' to repeat what it was sayin'. Alas, in vain. This one is incomparable."  
  
"What do you like so much about it?" I ask. "The thing about everybody being worth salvation, if only he repents and becomes a true Christian, or what?"  
  
He doesn't pay attention to my suddenly angry tone and answers friendly:  
  
"I'm not much prone to sermons, really, luv. I've been almost givin' it once, an' believe me, they're not very convincing even to the very priests who're givin' 'em."  
  
"What it is, then? The whole thing about Guzman being a Jew and a good man?"  
  
"I don't care a damn 'bout a man bein' a Jew, a Negro, or a Chinese. A good man is a good man and whoever yokes it with a colour or a nation, is a moron, nothin' more."  
  
"So what it would be for you? The author's claiming his work is like a watchtower of a human life, but for you it's only a dull sermon."  
  
"Oh, I think ye know what I'm talkin' about. It's the snake and the spider little thing."  
  
"The snake and the spider? I don't remember that."  
  
"Aw, but 'twas the only thing I've remembered when I read it first time. 'Tis a fancy allegory, Ritchie. Pity ye forgot it. All of us are livin' in ambush for each other, all of us are waitin' for the other to stumble an' fall, or to be off guard. The serpent is cunnin' an' powerful, but the spider waits until the serpent's asleep an' then descends his thread. If the serpent doesn't wake up, the spider'll grasp him by the neck an' kill him with his poison. But if the serpent wakes up, then he'll kill the spider with one blow. Now remember all that?"  
  
Now I do remember. But wait, what is he going to tell me? He's looking at me with deep dark eyes, leaning on the bookshelves, with the glimmering ornaments in his hair - ornaments that are borrowing their glimmer from the candlelights.  
  
"I believe that too," I say. "Humans are no better than animals, and even worse, for they know the meaning of pity, yet they never show it. Whoever gets killed, deserves it anyway, for he was as abominable as his killer all the same."  
  
"Oh, but I didn't say I'm believin' that, ye know. I just said it impressed me mind greatly."  
  
"You don't believe, but you're acting as if you believed it anyway," I say smilling. "Makes no difference for me."  
  
He narrows his eyes, then takes "Guzman" from my hands.   
  
"What do ye know to judge me? The very first day I met you ye're goin' to kill an innocent man - not 'cause of poor Anamaria, but 'cause ye're bored an' bold enough, an' because such was yer fancy."  
  
"I don't think he was innocent."  
  
"What was his fault then?"  
  
"I don't need to look for any faults when I'm going to kill somebody. I just don't consider him innocent. There ain't no innocent people in this world."  
  
"Ye think ye've never killed an innocent man."  
  
"Aye, that's right. I think that Grey Inn's bloke deserved it anyway. It's just that neither you nor me know about it."  
  
He smiles at me. His face is now only inches from mine; curse his catlikeness, I haven't even noticed when he did get so close to me.  
  
"That's interestin'. What's that pity thing you were talkin' about, then?"  
  
He smells faintly of rum. Only a little. I can feel the warmth from him... I want some of it.  
  
"It's different," I say in a whisper. "You pity somebody when you surely know he's not innocent. You know that it's pity. You've received it more than once... somebody let you escape from the noose, though he knew you deserved to die."  
  
"Who are ye talkin' about, I wonder?" he whispers too.  
  
"You know who," I say. My hands are cold.  
  
"Why are ye calling Commodore Norrington a somebody?" His voice is different now, there's a flicker of genuine wrath in his eyes. He doesn't want to be told anything about the Commodore. But it's because of himself. He's ashamed. He's blaming himself for something, and the thought of that escape is unbearable for him. Now there's a riddle. Why? Is it not one more thing to boast?  
  
"Thought you may have forgotten him."  
  
"An' what have you to do with that?"  
  
"Nothing. Just picking up an example of what pity is," I say looking at him innocently.  
  
"What's makin' ye think he showed me pity? I've stolen his ship, saved his little rival's life, then I've ridiculed him runnin' away from under his very nose. An' he let me go, because he pitied me? Please."  
  
So he is suspecting it. He is suspecting Commodore's sympathy for him, but he can't believe it. He wants to believe it, but he knows that it's impossible. He knows that it's impossible, but he is himself a living proof that he was redeemed by a man who was ready to pay with his life for the happiness and security of others.  
  
"What was it, if not pity?"  
  
"Pity's a thing unknown to soldiers, Ritchie. He's an officer of the Royal Navy. He hates pirates more than a housewife hates cockroaches an' mice. He wants the Caribbean cleared of the likes of us. Or d'ye prefer to think you can escape with yer life, when you go to Port Royal?"  
  
"Oh, but he let you go. Maybe you are special?"  
  
He steps back and sighs.  
  
"He couldn't do anything. I've fallen down an' that's it. The Pearl came to me. He knew we'd escape, she's the fastest ship in the Caribbean."  
  
"He could've pursued you. The Pearl has not many friends in the Spanish Main after these ten years. You'd loss that fight. But he didn't go after you. He spared you. He pitied you."  
  
He sighs again and rolls his eyes, but is listening to me.  
  
"The Commodore's spared not only me that day."  
  
"Right, he let that boy go free too... what was his name?"  
  
"Will Turner."  
  
"Whatever... the Governor's son-in-law. But I think he didn't care about him; he's lost the girl's heart for good, anyway. An' he's quite a noble man, what would he gain by hangin' the poor lad? Wouldn't win his lady back, right? 'Tis you his pity was for."  
  
"He was goin' to see me hanged."  
  
What's this strange emotion I hear in his voice? It's bitterness, but not about Commodore's actions. Yes, Sparrow thinks he somewhat deserved hanging; just as I used to think about myself when I was younger and had still those miserable moments of regret and remorse. But I had a good mentor who taught me to laugh at my remorse and to mock my regret; and Sparrow? He has just met a man who made him realize that there are other things than pursuing his own pleasure and greed.  
  
"That's his job, isn't it? But he wasn't going to enjoy it. He's a good man. Just like you - plunderin' and pilferin' is your job, but you're a good man." I look down modestly.  
  
And when I raise my eyes, he's right here by me. I catch my breath; his dark eyes are so close, he almost scares me.  
  
"If I am a good man, who are you then?" he asks in a strangely soft voice. I feel sudden shivers. Why does he seem so composed, is he not drunk?  
  
"I am a pirate and nothing more," I say, looking up at him. "I do know what pity is, though."  
  
"Oh, so ye do show it sometimes? Interesting." His lips twist in a half-cruel, half-playful smile. Is he playing with me now? And I feel a sudden wave of warmth. I like this smell of rum, I like this strange closeness... I want more of it, and I draw closer too. He may be trying to play with me, but I do like it.  
  
"Haven't met anybody deserving it," I say plainly, "for quite a long time. Besides, who'd need it anyway? But you, you are different. You're a captain, so much depends on you. There are always people who'd need your generosity one day."  
  
"You're right," he says with this strange smile, lowering his head; his dark dreads with trinkets and amulets hide his face for a moment, then he straightens up, looking down at me. "But it seems to me ye still don't know rules here. Yer goin' to show pity, no matter ye like it or not, as long as yer under my orders. No torturin' prisoners, no rapin', no beatin', an' no random killin', savvy?"  
  
"Aye," I say looking into his eyes. He's still so close, almost touching me. His left hand is holding up the bookshelf right by my arm, as if he were trying to keep his balance. Is he drunk or only pretending, or what? Why the hell is he not touching me?  
  
"There's one nice exception to the rules, an' maybe it'll make ye happy. If we ever encounter anyone of Barbossa's crew, yer allowed to kill 'em or to do whatever pleases you. Savvy that?"  
  
"Savvy," I say absent-mindedly, feeling cold again - he's stepping back from me.  
  
"Good. Go to sleep now. Oh, an' it seems ye'll have to try playin' the lute as it is. Maybe we'll have to look for that fret again tomorrow."  
  
Hasn't my Lady Death just winked at me? Never mind, I'm going to ignore her this time.  
  
tbc 


	3. I hate Jack Sparrow

Disclaimers: "Pirates of the Caribbean" belong to Disney. The song "A la vida bona" belongs to Juan Aranes, and the song "We Be Soldiers Three" belongs to Thomas Ravenscroft.  
  
Rating: R  
  
A/N: The French spelling in "We Be Soldiers Three" is not a mistake - I followed the original transcription.  
  
I'd like to thank all my wonderful reviewers and readers. Your feedback and criticism is greatly appreciated.  
  
-----------------------------  
  
III  
  
I hate Jack Sparrow.  
  
Or do I? Since that little encounter of ours I can't think of anything else than this sudden wave of warmth I was feeling. I don't know what it is - the captain's cabin with every single detail reminding me of these years I was sailing the Spanish Main as Captain Barbossa's companion? The sudden look of guilt in the man's eyes? The unwilling interest he is showing me?  
  
For it's clear he despises me even more than I hate him. He's suspecting a foul play, because I'm of a different kin than him and his crew. He smells blood on me, and he's trying to find out who I am and why I am here. Maybe he already knows. If not, why the hell would he tell me all that serpent-and-spider tale?  
  
He's trying to show me we have nothing in common. He is a pirate and I am a pirate too, but we consider each other a disgrace to the trade. I remind him what pirates really are: not good-natured folks like Gibbs, not beautiful and proud freedom-lovers like Anamaria, not peaceful and a little bit lost harbour-dwellers like the rest of the crew, no - ruthless, cold-blooded murderers with no respect for others' lives, let alone for their own. And it's how they are and will be regarded by common people. No matter how many songs about Tyburn tree will be sung, no matter how many little books about Nassau-Port-being-sacked-peacefully will be written.  
  
Does it really have anything to do with the Commodore, or was Sparrow always like that - loathing himself for what he is and for the irreversibility of it? I'd like to know. I think, I hope that Sparrow's feelings for the Commodore are to be blamed. Is he feeling unworthy of Norrington, like Norrington himself is feeling guilty before Sparrow? Does he want to meet him as badly as the Commodore does? If so, then I'm the worst go-between imaginable, for Sparrow will never listen to me.  
  
Yet he's looking at me with those dark eyes of his. He's trying not to. There's no friendliness in his stare, no kindness, no warmth - there is only his body, perhaps, that has some warmth for me, but not his soul. Ah. I feel the same. It's been a long time since I've felt this hard, relentless lust for a man, it's an unmistakable feeling indeed. Why do I feel it? I hate his vain attempts to be an honourable man and a pirate too, his attempts to gain what can't be gained in this world - freedom and clear conscience alike. I hate him for that spitting in the world's cruel face, for trying to stay unmarred by others' blood, for believing in others' innocence. It's not for me. I can't be like that.   
  
What do I want from him, then? Maybe I want him to share some of this easy intimacy that he seems to have for every being - with me. He doesn't even like me, I know, but he still can call me "luv" like he calls all his crew, as if it didn't cost him anything, and I don't need much more. Oh, hell, am I feeling that cold on the Pearl, that I'm going to take a firebrand from my foe's hands? No, I'll warm myself up by the fire I'll set.  
  
He's been looking at me when I was playing the bloody lute. The crew were beyond themselves with joy, only Little Chen smiled a little, for he has good ears and understands that the lute doesn't sound good and needs a new fret really badly.  
  
I winked to Little Chen and played the "Purple Bamboo" melody; he looked at me and started to blink. Sparrow smiled - he's been to Singapore and he probably knows the song. He can play lute as well, it seems - and has some decency left, therefore he won't play it before the crew. And he knows I'll come to look for the fret with him, and he's waiting for it - as I am. Or maybe he's more impatient then me, because there is something he wants to know... but no, I have my own little issues too. And both of us are looking forward for the other's surrender.  
  
Before we went to work again, Little Chen came to me and whispered:  
  
"Have something to tell you."  
  
"Why, thank you, what's that?" I asked. I like to know new things, especially when I'm the guest on the Black Pearl.  
  
"Um, do you know Victor?"  
  
"Victor? What's wrong with him?" Victor is the oldest man here, older than Cotton even. He must have spent his entire life on small pirate sloops, for he's working quite well, regardless that he's hardly even moving. He looks like a retired Latin teacher and I've always suspected that he's cobwebbed, as if he were sleeping in some dirty corner all the time.  
  
"He says he remembers you. He says, he saw you, eleven years ago. Do you know him?"  
  
"Never met him before," I said lightly, but my heart leaped suddenly. "Is he my long-lost uncle or what?"  
  
"He says, he saw you with Barbossa. He says you were on his ship, you sailed to Montserrat. He was on Montserrat that time. You don't know Victor?"  
  
"No, I don't know old Victor, mate. Why does he remember me, then?"  
  
I expect Little Chen saying something about Victor's son or relative killed in a tavern quarrel. What was I doing on Montserrat, anyway? I've been to Leeward Islands, of course... but If I can't remember anything, then we surely didn't do anything worth mentioning there.  
  
"He remembers you, because you were the youngest of them Barbossa's crew." Little Chen was looking at me worringly. Ah, the "Purple Bamboo" worked wonders for me. Nice fellow, Little Chen. I didn't want to worry him more, so I didn't ask him if that old fogey is going to tell Sparrow about his suspicions. Maybe I'll have to send him to heaven somehow.  
  
"Thanks, matey," I said, "poor Victor is just tired. And old, far too old to remember so many things. Well, at least he's not seeing movin' skeletons in his sleep, thank God." And I went to work, feeling like jumping into the sea.  
  
But then came the evening and my thoughts about Sparrow came back too. When I entered his cabin after my watch, I didn't see him at first. Then he came out from behind the screen and invited me to sit. Now I'm seated at the table and he's searching through a mahogany chest in the corner.  
  
"Thought it may be here," he says, "but it's a bloody little trifle. Easy to overlook. Damn. Too many chests an' boxes an' shelves in here."  
  
"You can, well... trust me and let me help you. I won't take anything, you've my word. Or do you trust me only with the books?"  
  
"Oh, no, bollocks. Ye' right. Come here an' take a look, be so kind. That next one."  
  
I open the heavy lid, and lo - there is a scarlet dress. I touch it shyly. Will I go mad on this damned ship?  
  
"Aah, the dress. I wonder why it's still here."  
  
"You know it?"  
  
"Do I know it? Sure. The Port Royal Governor's daughter, Lizbeth, was wearin' it on her lil' escapade with the Cortez's treasure. Barbossa gave it to her. An' then took it back. Was always wonderin' what that bloody dress ever mattered to him."  
  
"I don't think the fret can be in the same chest with a dress," I say and stand up. I'd rather look for it among the books. Or in the chest on the opposite side. Anywhere but away from him.  
  
"Wait, wait," he says and stands up too with a broad smile. "Let's finish these chests."  
  
"I'd check those over there."  
  
"I've checked 'em already."  
  
"The books, then."  
  
He's looking at me with an open mockery.  
  
"D'ye want to help or not?"  
  
"I do," I say and want to kneel down again, but he stops me.  
  
"Ye have a good pistol, Ritchie. Show me it, will ye?"  
  
I hesitate. I'm not that stupid, I know I shouldn't allow him to take my weapon from me. But I can't refuse either, because it would raise his suspicions, and he has all the crew at his orders - were he going to kill me, I'd have no way to run. And something tells me he wouldn't kill me now, when the night is still so young.  
  
"Sure," I say.  
  
He takes the pistol and inspects it lazily, I'm going to look through the books again, but then he stops me.  
  
"Where d'ye have this pistol from?"  
  
"Bought," I say. "But not by money."  
  
"Oh, did ya really? What's this?"  
  
I turn back to look at him - he shows me the initials engraved on the pistol's butt-end. JN. Damn.  
  
"Previous owner's initials, I reckon," I say brazenly looking him in the eyes.  
  
"You've met Commodore Norrington."  
  
"Why do you think so? There can be many people here with the same initials."  
  
"Aye, but it happens that I've seen this pistol before, an' not only once or twice. Maaany times," he sings caressing the pistol, with his eyes on me. "Have another lie to tell me, luv, or will you be nice an' cooperating?"  
  
He's not threatening me at all, still he has my pistol in his hands. And I don't know how much he knows; I don't know if old Victor has been here with his dangerous guesses. I'm alone here, I must play very, very carefully... yet I can't deny myself a little fun.  
  
I cast my eyes down with an embarrassed smile.  
  
"Well, there's nothing to hide," I say, "though nothing to be proud either. I spent a night with the Commodore, and this pistol was my pay."  
  
He is silent, but when I can feel that he moved closer to me, I take a step back. Our eyes meet, and he endures my unwillingly triumphant look with a not-so-sincere smile.  
  
"So ye still have a whole pack of lies in yer sleeves," he says. "Interesting. Tell me more."  
  
"You want this story to be a lie, don't you? Ask me if I have a reason to invent things like that. It's not flatterin' for me in the slightest." I look aside, at the flickering candles on the table. The ship is creaking sleepily around us, a lullaby-like, soothing melody.  
  
"For what I know 'bout ye, it may be pretty flatterin' for ye. Ye don't look like havin' particularly strong moral principles, luv. But ye know what? Let's say there's much more disturbin' point to it, namely that I don't think the officer of the Royal Navy would present his pistol to a whore as willingly as ye put it."  
  
Ah, so you're fighthing, but you're already bleeding too. And you know what? It's impossible for you to hurt me more than you already did, be it with your words or with your hands.  
  
"Well, 'willingly' isn't exactly the word... I'd say 'carelessly'. 'Unconsciously', even. You know, he was drunk, poor devil." I sigh, shaking my head. "I was in such need, and although I was feelin' really sorry for the fellow, I've taken advantage of him. He didn't have much money, but was so pleased with me that he didn't hesitate to give me his pistol."  
  
He frowns at me, there is now only one thing he notices.  
  
"He's been drinkin'? With you? Where?"  
  
"A little tavern called 'The Red Stocking'. You know it probably. In Port Royal of course. He wasn't drinking with me, though. He was all alone." I smile. "Pathetic fellow. Wanted to cheer him up, honestly. That's why I didn't take his money either. Had pity over him, you see."  
  
I see bright wrath in his eyes and I rejoice, for now there is my turn to watch my foe suffer. He'd like to hit me, but he can't show that he cares about the Commodore, he doesn't want to uncover his vulnerability to me. What now, Jack Sparrow?  
  
"Hm," he says slowly, narrowing his eyes, "so it seems ye can understand what pity is. Ye've convinced me. But why don't I still believe yer story, Ritchie?... Ah, lemme see... James Norrington, the Commodore of the Royal Navy, is shaggin' a dirty pirate in The Red Stocking. Nah, pardon me, I don't get the picture."  
  
You don't, but you want to.  
  
"'Tis no riddle," I say quietly and seriously. "It's true I was only a dirty pirate to him, and he took me as a proxy. He lusts after another man, but I don't know his name. And it happens that this man's a pirate like me; and because I was an only man in the whole place who looked as such, the Commodore went with me."  
  
For a twinkling of an eye I can see him stunned, an amazing sight really; he forgets to watch for me, he's asking himself what to do and how to react, there is panic in these deep dark eyes - but it's only a while and he returns to his previous guarded self, only with a trace of tiredness and enmity.  
  
"He told ye all that? He told ye that he LUSTS after a man... after a pirate? Norrington told ye all that?"  
  
"Of course he didn't," I say, "but he didn't need to. I'm not that dull. I don't know what you think and I don't care, if you don't believe me, so be it. He was groggy like hell and I asked him if he wants to go with me. He didn't protest. And when we went upstairs, he told me that he doesn't really want to lie with me, but I reminded him of somebody. That's all."  
  
He's watching me and listening to me, he's as close to me as he can be without touching me, trying to feel with his whole self if I can be trusted. He knows that I can't, but he's ready to catch every sincere tone in my voice, as if he could compose a song of hope from them.  
  
"He didn't want to lie with ye, but he did?"  
  
"He did." I smile. "That's why I can be, uhm... partially proud of myself, just like you said. If I hadn't need the bloody pistol so badly, frankly speaking - I'd have done it for free."  
  
He smiles too, but I can't see any smile in his suddenly cold, angry eyes. I can feel the night around us darken and deepen.  
  
"Ah, ye would? Now that's interesting. Why?"  
  
"It's not often that I've a chance to sleep with a man who never did it before. And he had so much scruples, even being drunk... it was a pleasure to free him from all those ridiculous ideas like God and nature and dignity and duty. A very special experience for us both, I'm sure."  
  
He looks down with a short laugh, barely audible through his clenched teeth. And then raises his head. His eyes shine with hatred and passion alike.  
  
"A special experience, ye say."  
  
I'm silent, waiting. He looks down at me, with his eyes narrowed.  
  
"Did ye really convince him? Did ye make him forget ev'rything he is that easily? It must've been a formidable accomplishment. I wonder how did ye do it? Tell me."  
  
I smile half-apologingly.  
  
"I'm not that good in tellin' tales."  
  
I want to taunt him more, now when we are so threateningly close, my shoulder touching his, our glares locked, our fists clenched, his faintly rum-smelling breath on my face.  
  
"Don't tell, then. Show me. Show me what you did for him," he demands, barely opening his mouth.  
  
"Oh," I say smilling, "but whatever I did for him, I won't do for you."  
  
His hands cleanch on my wrists.  
  
"'Twould be a shame, for you're sooo much more experienced. I don't have to teach you anything, right?" I draw closer to him, looking into his furious eyes. "But him... he didn't know a bit. He wanted to kiss me, an' you know what? Was too ashamed, so I had to put the candle off. And then, he was so clumsy, his hands were shaking, I had to hold his head so that he wouldn't miss my mouth in the dark..."  
  
And although I am trying to snicker, I cannot, a deadly severe feeling overwhelming me; it's a desire unleashing itself in this cursed man's presence, desire so long held back, desire to forget that I'm caught in the web I'm weaving. I buck myself against him, he lets my hands go, but now his fingers close on my shoulders. He bites me - there will be no kissing - I bite him back. He laughs into my mouth. There is nothing to be said now, he's opening my shirt, I'm opening his, just a little, so that we can feel each other's bare skin.  
  
Ah, that lil' bit o'understanding. We don't need to like each other, yet both of us know where and how to touch. I'm sure he'll take his pleasure, he's sure I'll take mine, we've been through all of this before, and it's simple - if there's a chance to have another man's body during a long sea trip, then you take it without ceremony.   
  
Still, there's too much heat in these scanty caresses. I have my hands already in his breeches, pressing his hips to mine, then moving slowly from his buttocks to the front - ah, he's hard, but let's make him harder, let's make him moan... but all I get is a ragged breath. He doesn't want to surrender. But so am I. I feel his tongue, then his teeth on my neck, along with the touch of the beard - and it alone makes me tremble, for I've always liked this - his fingernails dig deep into my back, but I'm stubbornly biting my lips. He raises his head to glance at me, I look aside - then he stops my hand.  
  
"Easy, luv, look at me," he whispers in my ear and grabs my hair firmly. "Now, look in my eyes an' tell me, where the hell d'ye come from and who send ye here?"  
  
Awww, is that stupid Victor's work? I fill my eyes with all the innocence I have in stock.  
  
"What are you afraid of?"  
  
He laughs and shakes his head.  
  
"Nothin'. Just don't like to fuck somebody who can't look me in the eye."   
  
"What if I told you that it's Norrington who sent me to you?"  
  
His grip on my hair tightens a little. "He didn't."  
  
"No, he didn't. But he did me a favor that I decided to repay. I've stolen his pistol - you've stolen his peace. I came here to tell you that, believe it or n..."  
  
"Shut up," he says with a dull despair, and all of a sudden I have his mouth on mine, not biting this time, but kissing... the difference is ever so slight, but it softens me against my will, and I open my lips letting him in. His hands are holding my neck harshly, I find myself pressing into him again, with my hands under his shirt, but the kiss doesn't last, he withdraws and leaning his forehead against mine whispers:  
  
"Was it like that with 'im?"  
  
"Ask him yourself," I say catching my breath. "Go to Port Royal. He's drinking every Saturday in The Red Stocking."  
  
He smiles to his thoughts, coming back to his usual careless self. He's almost convinced now. He knows that Norrington wants him, and I know he wants Norrington too. He can start planning safe escapade to Port Royal. Rejoice, Ritchie Brown, the worst go-between on earth, for thy mission is nearly complete. I look at the melting candles on the table - the table without the altar cape I remember so well.  
  
"Are ye going to tell me that he's not lookin' forward to see me dancin' on the noose's end?"  
  
What am I doing here with this man? Norrington is not going to hang him. I can see the Commodore's face, when he says his pathetic "it's not easy to hang a man. Even if he's evil, even when you know he's taken innocent lives and there's blood on his hands that calls out to God. And if you have to hang a good man..." Something is snapping inside me. I can't stand Jack Sparrow being happy.  
  
"That I don't know. Maybe he is. You're haunting him. He remembers your name even when he's so drunk that he almost can't stand up."  
  
He narrows his eyes.  
  
"Ye said he didn't tell the name."  
  
"He did, in fact, just not very clearly. He told me the name. He called me by it. Oh, was so bloody sorry after that."  
  
"He called ye by that name, when..."  
  
"He called me by your Christian name when we were fucking, aye. Now you can do the same with his."  
  
For a moment he looks like hitting me, but then his disdain prevails over hatred; he takes a deep breath, then spits on the floor at my feet and turns away.  
  
"Well, good night to you," I say and go out of the cabin.  
  
Then standing on the main deck I look upon the stars. The heat in my body is gone, I scratch my head and sigh. What was I going to do, after all? To sleep with my friend's murderer, who probably wasn't even going to allow me to bugger him, seeing that he is older than me and a captain here... to make him happy and convinced that he's fancied by the man I'd like to have myself. No, it can't be that easy for Sparrow... nor for me, because I wanted to lie with him as well.  
  
The next morning, which is the last before Tortuga, I'm eating the breakfast with Little Chen, sitting on the railing near the forecastle. Little Chen is very excited, like all the crew, because Tortuga means fresh food and women; Cotton's name is no longer on the binnacle list, even Anamaria's serious features are softened a little. Gibbs can hardly wait for Tortuga coastline to emerge before us.  
  
"How long are we going to stay?" I ask.  
  
"Don't know," says Little Chen sighing, "only a few days, I think. Captain wants to go to Cancun soon. Pity. I like Tortuga, more than La Onza de Gracia."  
  
Sure you do. La Onza de Gracia is on the outskirts of the Caribbean. Ah, why don't you people run a nice peaceful family business like selling oysters? Must you really trample the proud deck of this unfortunate ship?  
  
I'm chewing the sinewy meat with my head lowered, when Little Chen elbows me, and I see Jack Sparrow standing before us. He approached us quickly and quietly, as always - I look at him puzzled; he's eating like us and his mouth is full, so he gestures at me. I stretch my hand, he gives me something. A fret, and a gut too.  
  
Little Chen smiles, Sparrow manages to swallow his meat at last and says, grinning:  
  
"Replace it, Ritchie, we'll have a nice evening in Tres Morillas today."  
  
His voice is even, he's looking at me openly, but there's a little bit of watchful defiance behind this look. I don't want to dwell on it now, so I answer with a quick, obedient smile, taking the fret from his hand.  
  
"Alright," I say, "I'll do it now."  
  
"Good," he says, patting Little Chen on his shoulder for an unknown reason, and walks away not looking at me. I scratch my head with the fret. Tres Morillas?... I know this name. Must be a tavern... but I have a strange feeling that it's not a place I'd like to go. Well, seems that I don't have a choice, since it's the captain's decision.  
  
Little Chen brings me fire and watches me when I'm melting the end of the fret gut with the hot end of a knife.  
  
"What for?" he asks.  
  
"To prevent the knot from slipping undone, mate."  
  
"It's not easy."  
  
"No, it isn't. A tedious lil' thing, it is. Lucky that only one fret needs replacing."  
  
"You play lute very nicely. I like it. Anamaria, she says, you can't be an evil man, because you play so nicely."  
  
"Uhm... does she?"  
  
"She says, Victor is a stupid old man. She laughs at him. People don't believe him. You know, what he said about you, that you was among Barbossa's crew."  
  
"Ah, that one." I've put the cursed knot's other end in the bad direction. Damn.  
  
"Gibbs says, you feel lonely without any family, he likes you."  
  
Little Chen, you'll kill me sooner than Sparrow will.  
  
"Aye, Gibbs is a good fellow... What about you? Do you have any family?"  
  
"N-no, but... but I like a girl. She's working in Tortuga."  
  
"So you can meet her this evening."  
  
"I can. You can meet a nice girl, too. There are many nice girls in Tres Morillas."  
  
I'm sure I have been there, I think, when we finally reach our place. It's dark already, and the door and windows are wide open. The tavern itself is nothing more than a crude wooden shack, which once rather small, now gained enormous proportions by added storeys, penthouses, balconies and sheds. It's full of night, drunken life, with people running up and down the stairs, tapdancing on the cracking floors, lovemaking loudly in the smelly rooms in the back. Three barely visible silhouettes stand under a tree on the rainwashed signboard - oh, I remember it now. The previous owner, a fat Spaniard, had three pretty daughters, and he named his tavern Tres Morillas after them, and after the old song about three dark-coloured beauties that were picking olives in Jaen, the song that reminded him about his old country...  
  
Wait, why do I remember all this rubbish? Why, it means that I've been to Tres Morillas before. But my memory doesn't stretch beyond the signboard story. I must have been deadly drunk... I didn't visit Tortuga very often, and it was more than ten years before. Even if I had done something not quite, uhm, ethical here, sure nobody remembers it now.  
  
We enter the tavern and good folks gathered here - there aren't many of them, though - give us way politely. We're rather safe, because Tres Morillas is near to the darker part of the island, still not frequented too much by the servants of the law; but it's not the previous, free Tortuga anymore. I can see that many of the guests are of our kind, with tanned faces, cutlass scars, and unstable gestures, but they are hiding their pistols under their coats and jackets - Anamaria is covering her proudly tucked pistol too - and some of them cover their hands with sleeves longer than necessary. I sigh, mending a piece of cloth on my right hand. We must keep a low profile here, it seems. The golden days of Tortuga are gone.  
  
The owner's wife, a corpulent woman with heavy black hair and a light moustache - there are still traces of rich, generous beauty in her - leans over the counter and claps her hand on the sight of Sparrow; he smooches her in the reddened cheek and calls her familiarly "Maria", asking about her husband. Oh, he's busy outside with the mules. What about the children, asks Sparrow, and she answers that the elder son is with his father, and little Susanita is over here, with her friends.  
  
We're looking politely in that direction and see three children - two girls and a boy - crouching over the bucket in the corner. Near them, on the short bench under the wall, several women - "girls", I mean - wake up from their slumber and run to our table. Soon even Little Chen has a girl on his knees, and Gibbs and Sparrow have two of them each. Anamaria rolls her eyes and pours half of a pint down her throat.  
  
The youngest of them all, Monica, is sitting with Sparrow, who after a short conversation unceremoniously puts his hands under her skirt. Monica is tall and has a long, graceful neck, but her big, round, slightly protruding eyes give a vague impression of dullness. But it's not brightness what a starving pirate seeks in a woman, and Sparrow is engulfed in her big bosom's warmth.  
  
My girl - is she a Maria, too? - notices the lute and asks me for music.  
  
"No, no, wait, dear," says Gibbs, whose red face gives away his age, as he obviously can't manage two girls on his lap, "let's eat somethin' first."  
  
Maria the owner's wife brings food by herself; she must be friends with Sparrow, I think. We begin a feast, shuffling meats and beans, the eldest and most timid of the girls is taking care of Cotton (she's gaping into his mouth, very curious about the remnant of his tongue), Little Chen is skinning an orange for his Pepita, Gibbs is squinting his eyes at both of his girls, Maria - oh no, she's Lucia - and me are eating the same bread crust, dipped in sauce.  
  
Sparrow is feeding Monica with a bits of chicken, but she's not looking at him, she's obviously concerned with the children playing with the bucket. Sparrow frowns at her, but looks in the same direction.  
  
"What's disturbin' ye, luv?" he asks.  
  
"Oh, Captain," she says plainly, "Susanita and Rico are playin' together so nicely all day, but Antonia's a bad girl, she's annoying them."  
  
"Yeah, that's what I'm sayin'", bellows Maria suddenly with voice dark and heavy like her hair, "this lil' one is a true pest."  
  
The children, although busy with their bucket and whatever else, feel with their keen instinct that we're talking about them, and raise their heads. It's easy to recognize little Susanita, the owner's daughter, for her garment is made from a fine linen and her cheeks are round and pink. Rico and Antonia look very alike, because their wildly unkempt hair is of the same length and they wear long gown-like clothes of the same indefinite colour.  
  
"Whose children are they?" asks Anamaria.  
  
"Ah, Rico an' Antonia are mine," answers Monica nervously.  
  
Rico, who is younger, is smilling to us; he has round, a little bit dull eyes of his mother, and is very pleased with Susanita's arm, rounding his neck possessively. He feels like a man already, and he knows that his mother is proud of fondness that little Susanita has for him. His sister, Antonia, who can be about eight years old, has an uncertain air of a child who doesn't understand what the adults want from her - there's a wariness in the depth of these dark eyes.   
  
"Such a nice lil' pair, these two," barks Maria, "an' Antonia's like jealous, or what... always there to mess things up, she is."  
  
"Antonia, leave 'em alone," orders her mother quickly. Ah, she wants her Rico to hold little Susanita's favor. She probably doesn't realize that he will lose it anyway when he grows up - Maria's no fool to allow her daughter to play with prostitute's son anymore. For Rico's mother, like for most girls of her profession, tomorrow does not exist.  
  
I can see now what the children are doing - they are drowning newly-born kittens in the bucket. There are still two of them left, but they are so small they don't even make any noise.  
  
"Told 'em to get rid of the cats," says Maria, "too many of 'em already, an' they smell."  
  
"But mama, they took my kitten too," says Antonia quietly. She already knows that her case is lost, but is still trying. How futile.  
  
"Leave them the hell alone," orders Monica waving her hands, and Antonia steps aside without any other word. She knows when to stop. She is wise.  
  
This girl is beginning to doubt and to weight things already. I see it in a look she gives her mother, a look of hurt, but also of loathing. Yes, little one, the place you are in is not necessarily the best for you.  
  
Maybe Sparrow is thinking the same, because he sighs and says to Monica, scratching his nose:  
  
"Poor lil' Antonia, no need to be so harsh to her, luv. She's a big girl. Let her sit with us, 'ey?" And he turns to the child, saying "Come here, Antonia, an' eat somethin' with us."  
  
Monica opens her mouth in dismay, but her business experience is not so poor after all, because she agrees:  
  
"As you like, Captain," and kisses him very sweetly, now trying the role of a tender mother concerned about her daughter's future. Sparrow, peeping into her bosom again, gives Antonia an orange and whispers to me:  
  
"Cheer this lil' Antonia, will ye, Ritchie?"  
  
I nod and invite her to sit between me and Gibbs. She looks at us both without a smile and stretches her short legs with a grave expression, weighing the orange in her hand. It's clear that she's not hungry and not very interested in our company - we're people she's seeing every day.  
  
"Uhm, Lucia, sweetie," I say to my girl, "what about some songs?"  
  
"Oh, what can you sing?"  
  
"Whatever you like... Spanish, English, Catalan, Italian ones." I take the lute.  
  
"Now, now," says Lucia with suddenly enchanted voice, "you have a formidable instrument here!"  
  
I laugh at the involuntary pun.  
  
"You don't have music in Tres Morillas?"  
  
"Sometimes, but the musicians are expensive, and the business goes not so well in Tortuga nowadays. Oh, look, what a rosette! Look, Antonia!"  
  
The girl looks at the rosette unwillingly, wrinkling her little nose, but her eyes widen suddenly.  
  
"Oh," she says, "is it living, this flower?"  
  
"No," I say, "but it's carved so well that we all know that music can bring everything to life. Do you want to hear about a great fancy-dress ball, Antonia?"  
  
"A fancy-dress ball?"  
  
"Aye, ev'rybody is dancing in their fancy dresses around Queen Antonia. It's the dancing party with a thousand of pleasures, and we all dance to the good, sweet life."  
  
"Ah," exclaims Lucia, "that stupid song! 'A la vida, vidica bona, vida vamonos a chacona'?"  
  
"This song ain't more stupid than our lives, Princess Lucia. Will you sing with me?" I ask. "Listen, Queen Antonia, about a fancy-dress ball that was famed both far and wide."  
  
The company at our table soon turns to us, when we start singing this lovely mess of a song, about the party in the month of roses, when Orpheus's sister-in-law began a Guinea dance and an Amazon woman finished it, when don Gonzalo was dancing with the frivolous dona Albarda and a blind man, the country girl with a sick man's wife, a guy from Zamorra with Lisarda the shepherdess... then came Galen the physician, and Cupid's mother herself, and then, well, the harpy and all the toffs and snobs of the city, the aloes cargo and the crane with barley porridge... and even thirty Sundays with twenty Mondays on their backs, the unwilling donkey and forty Barcelona harlots followed the dancing procession... which was famed both far and wide.  
  
Every stanza is being listened with high attention and when comes the refrain everybody is dying of laughter, I can hardly play, Lucia giggles instead of supporting me, but the best thing is that little Antonia is jumping on her chair with delight.  
  
"I like this song!" she informs me when I finish. "I like the donkey and the gypsy girl best! Why is there vermin in the aloes cargo?"  
  
"Uhm, I don't know," I say, "there's always vermin in a cargo, don't you think?"  
  
"Oh, that was good, mate," says Sparrow, looking at Antonia and then smilling at me gratefully. "D'ye have more of this?"  
  
"Maybe ye know that song about soldiers comin' back from the Low Country," says Gibbs pleadingly. "'Twas very popular in London not so long ago."  
  
"Aah, this one I know," I say. "Now it's about your own soldiers, Queen Antonia."  
  
"My own soldiers?"  
  
"Aye, every queen needs soldiers too, not only elegant folks dancing."  
  
She smiles widely: "Sing me about my soldiers."  
  
"We be soldiers three,  
  
Pardona moy, je vous an pree,  
  
Lately come forth of the Low Country  
  
With never a penny of money.  
  
Here, good fellow, I drink to thee,  
  
To all good fellows, wherever they be.  
  
And he that will not pledge me this,  
  
Pay for the shot whatever it is..."  
  
The door open when I'm singing, and Maria clasps her hands roaring:  
  
"Ah, Captain Sparrow, my husband's here! Come to us, Elias, we're havin' a nice music this evenin', thanks to the Captain!"  
  
Her big husband is coming to us, making as much noise as he can with his huge boots, goes behind the counter, drinks some water, clears his throat and says with the hollow voice:  
  
"Nice to see ye, Captain! An' a good music, 'tis always welcome in me..."  
  
And he stops when our eyes meet. His face becomes pale.  
  
"Hold it for me, queen," I whisper throwing the lute into little Antonia's embrace. Sparrow throws a quick glance at me.  
  
"Captain, there's vermin in yer cargo!" screams the owner, searching with trembling hands under the counter. "Where did ye take him from?"  
  
"What are ye talkin' bout, Elias?" says Sparrow.  
  
"I've said it, but nobody listen'd to me," murmurs Victor.  
  
All the crew is backing away from me.  
  
"I remember him, ne'er would forget his face," says Elias panting. "He came here more than eleven years ago, hasn't changed much... he came here with Barbossa, may he burn in hell, an' they killed my own brother... shot 'im in the head."  
  
I can't say anything, because... well, because I do have some vague memory of being here, but...  
  
"Wait, wait," I say standing up, "I don't remember it."  
  
"Ye don't, ye bastard? But ye shot him, ye shot him... 'twas a bet... you were makin' a bet that ye'd aim an' hit the hole in the wall... that hole..."  
  
"It wasn't me, you dumbhead!"  
  
"'Twas yer company, an' ye should pay," he pants with tears in his bulging eyes. Sparrow, with his teeth clenched, makes a gesture towards his pistol.  
  
I throw a glance behind my shoulder - the door are open, but I need to get out. Now. And I snatch little Antonia from her chair; she blinks when my pistol's barrel touches her temple, but is holding the lute firmly, dangling under my arm. Brave girl.  
  
"Oh m'God!" cries Monica. "Oh sweet Madonna, please, please..."  
  
"Back, people," I say, "or there'll be an innocent blood on you all."  
  
They back unwillingly. I am Barbossa's man, after all - they don't know how black my heart can be. I can see this uncertainty in Sparrow's face too.  
  
"Good," I say backing to the door, paying attention not to squeeze Antonia; she doesn't move. "Thank you for your hospitality. Will release the lil' one soon, don't you worry."  
  
Monica is crying from the depth of her oh so confused motherly heart.  
  
"I will kill you, Ritchie Brown," says Sparrow without his usual slurring; his eyes are fixed on me. "I will kill you anyway, but if you hurt the girl, I'll do it slowly, savvy?"  
  
"Why, savvy, of course," I say. "I take the liberty of retaining my Captain's lute, though. Along with the new fret."  
  
"Fuck you, Ritchie."  
  
"That you almost did," I say and I'm outside.  
  
The night air is surprisingly chilling to me, although I know that it must be warm. I hesitate for a moment, I don't know if I should release Antonia now, or if she'll come in handy later. But she doesn't try to wriggle or run away, she clings to me without a word. So I run among the wooden walls of Tres Morillas to the back, to the scanty lights of the town houses, but then my hostage stops me.  
  
"No, wait," she says, "there's an old barn over there! Nobody comes in, because our Nohemi hanged herself there..."  
  
When we are in the barn, she gives me back the lute and climbs the ladder like a cat running after a bird. It's dark like hell, some of the ladder's steps are a little bit rotten, but I'm not that heavy and soon we're sitting on the loft, our eyes slowly accustoming to the thick darkness. We don't hear people's shouts anymore, they must've gone to the shore and to the back. I sigh looking at Antonia, she answers me by her knowing glance.  
  
"I must go," I say simply.  
  
"Uhm."  
  
"Go back to your mama, little queen."  
  
"Will you come back here?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"You can come back and kill Elias," she says. "He pinches me under my clothes. I hate him."  
  
I sigh looking at her.  
  
"Listen, Antonia. Maybe I will come back and kill him, but I can't promise anything now."  
  
"Uhm. They want to kill you?"  
  
"Yes, but I will run away. And you run from Elias, until he gets killed, alright?"  
  
"Uhm."  
  
I take my old amulet of Fatima's hand from my wrist; the strap is still strong enough. I place the trinket in the little sweaty palm.  
  
"Look, Queen Antonia," I say, "it's going to protect you for awhile. It worked for me and will work for you."  
  
"I like it," she says looking at the golden hand.  
  
"Good. I have one thing to ask you, my queen. My name's Ritchie Brown. Do you remember the captain's name?"  
  
"That man with shiny things in his hair? And he had beads in his beard..."  
  
"Yes, that man."  
  
"Captain Sparrow?"  
  
"Right. Tell him..." I think for a moment. "...that whatever Ritchie said about stolen things is true."  
  
"Uhm. What was stolen?"  
  
"Never mind. Peace. Will you tell him that?"  
  
"I will tell him that what Ritchie said about a stolen peace was true."  
  
"Right. You are truly my Queen, Antonia. Go back to your mama now."  
  
I sigh again, looking at the little figure running to Tres Morillas across the field, then my thoughts go back to Sparrow. Whee, I've ruined everything! He was going to believe that Norrington fancies him, but now I'm not that sure he believes me at all. He doesn't trust me and he doesn't know what part of my tale is true, therefore he won't go to Port Royal soon, no matter what little Antonia will tell him now...  
  
But I still owe the Commodore, after all. And there may still be a chance that the Commodore will hang Sparrow after all. I must repair all I've ruined. Maybe my tactics weren't as good as I thought. Well... if not by fuck, then by force. Ah, I can have a little coat of arms with this device someday. 


End file.
